UPDATE: to the untrained eye, lem appeared to take fastidious care not to earn himself another nickname. the trademark quirky declarations about blow torches and nemeses and the shapeliness of his milk foam were strangely missing. we blame his employer — that bastion of soulless corporate culture — for homogenizing mr. sexy foam.

otherwise, the dreadlocked barista-come-roaster was the only finalist to go sig-capp-spro, kicking off his routine with honey in the bottom of talls shot glasses, a custom spro on top and a layer of “espresso foam” for a topper, made of cucumber, lemon, ginger and more spro tossed about in a martini shaker. the glassware, he said, cooled the bev to an ideal slightly warm state of being. “dig deep,” said he.

uh, yum. there’s little else to say from the stands. no latte art on the capps — just quasi monksheads and a custom brazil-ethiopia-double-el-salvador espresso blend. the cuppa now steaming in front of this blog meets lem’s public description in at least one key area: it’s one of those brews that lingers fat and spicy on the tongue, making its smoothness a groovy presence well into the afternoon. we don’t know if it has a name. we’re calling it “alter ego.”

Thanks for the shouts and support everyone…you too B-dog. I wish I would have thrown out some quirky comment about sexy foam or the wondrous milk vortex. All I could think about was getting my ass kicked by these new jacks. Mainly my teammate Danielle. She really had her act together. Also, Katy from Murky was out for blood too so I was trying to stay focused on the task at hand while being calm. It was the first time I was using two different spro blends, UPS damaged my grinder, we had a short and shaky judges table, and we had to deal with a crazy stage. WHO THOUGHT OF THAT ONE?
Big up to Monin for a great first run. AND a big SHOUT to Gary and crew at ASTORIA for repairing my grinder enough to get me through competition.
As for quirky quotes, sorry Ben maybe at nationals.
Besides sexy foam is so ’05.

During the first round the other runner and I didn’t see any way to bus your glasses without risking them, so everything left after judging was poured into the trays so we could lay the shot glasses down. I’d swear we had a half dozen people stop us on the way back to the set-up stations, all trying to get a sip. Everyone was bummed that they didn’t get to sample the ginger-lemon-cuke-honey shots.